DOCSLIB.ORG

Article in PDF Format

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Article in PDF Format Nordic Journal of African Studies 9(2): 85-104 (2000) Patriots or Bandits? Britain's Strategy for Policing Eritrea 1941-1952 NENE MBURU University of London, The United Kingdom ABSTRACT This article analyses counter-banditry policies during the British military administration of Eritrea from 1941 to 1952. The study dismisses the claim that post-Second World War Eritrea was too fragmented along ethnic and religious lines to be allowed to gain political independence. Its finding is that such claims were calculated to influence the political future of the territory through an international compromise deal that allowed Ethiopia to administer, and later to colonize Eritrea. Britain’s counter-banditry measures failed because she did not deliver the liberation promises made to the people of Eritrea during the World War, there was little investment in will and resources, and her wider imperialistic designs in the Horn of Africa came on the way. The article concludes that, whatever the ethnic or religious identity of Shifta bandits, the causes, course, and resolution of banditry could not be isolated from the uncertainty and complexity of determining Eritrea’s sovereignty. Hence the political protest that was treated as banditry during the British Military Administration of Eritrea from 1941 to 1952 crystallized into four decades of formidable liberation struggle against Ethiopia’s administration. INTRODUCTION The existing position is that we are unable to control banditry in Eritrea to an extent which makes it possible for us properly to discharge our share of implementing the UN resolution in Eritrea or to enable the UN Commission to discharge his (FO 371/90320).1 The relationship between civilians and the military in post-Second World War Eritrea was based on the general directive for occupied enemy territories issued by Britain to its military commanders at the strategic level. The instructions provided British strategic commands with the flexibility to continue active military operations, maintain active military control even after the cessation of active military operations, and to revert to civilian control in the case of an armistice or treaty agreement. This guideline for the employment of troops in the maintenance of internal security in all the African territories captured from Italy was known as “Duties in aid of the civil power, 1937" issued by the War Office (WO 230/17). 1 Foreign Office (FO) and War Office (WO) records have been obtained from the Public Records Office Kew Gardens, London. Similarly, research evidence from The Kenya National Archives Nairobi is abbreviated KNA. 85 Nordic Journal of African Studies Military commanders in specific liberated territories formulated their Standing Operating Procedures to address any peculiarities obtaining in their territory but consulted the civil-military-relation handbook from the War Office as a guide. Unlike British colonies, the administrative Headquarters for the African territories liberated from the Axis powers was not based in London but in the British Middle East Command before relocating to Nairobi in 1944. Given such unambiguous regulations, the direct linkage between the military, the occupied territory, and the prevailing euphoria of emancipation from fascist repression, one could expect peace and tranquillity to mark the post-war period. Yet Eritrea is a case in point whose post-war history indicates widespread internal security problems and anything but friendship between the ‘liberator’ and the ‘liberated’. Any analysis of Eritrea’s political history from 1941 to 1952 should grasp the wider picture by balancing the significance of Shifta banditry against various counter-measures by the British Military Administration (hereafter BMA). It is the view that the period has not received adequate scholarly attention despite being the genesis of Africa’s longest armed struggle against ‘foreign’ domination that was to last four decades. This opinion is based on a review of the literature on the region that, albeit a generalization, leads to the categorization of scholars as being sympathetic to either Ethiopia or Eritrea. For example, Okbazghi defines the Shifta as ‘terrorists’ that attacked ‘nationalists’ a definition that precludes the existence of bandits among pro-independence Eritreans. Not surprisingly, the scholar fails to analyse why the steps taken by the BMA to establish law and order failed. Similarly, by defining the Shifta as “armed gangs of Christian Abyssinia”, meaning pro-union sympathizers, Trevaskis' (1975: 96) has not given a fair crack of the whip to both sides. The scholar further interprets the problem of post-Second World War Eritrea in terms of ethnic and religious fragmentation. This article contests the above definition of the bandits of the period by marshalling evidence to support the view that both pro-union and pro-independence Eritreans had sympathizers among the gunmen. Pankhurst’s 1952 publication is very brief on post-war security arrangements in Eritrea but establishes a firm anchor of post-war lawlessness to Britain’s inequitable distribution of economic opportunities in favour of Italian nationals. In 1953 she co-authored a more contextualized account that is a deeper discussion of some of the draconian measures undertaken by Britain to suppress banditry in Eritrea. Greenfield (1965) claims that Pankhurst (1952, 1953) is sympathetic to pro-independence Eritreans yet he struggles to mask his pro-union bias by omitting a discussion of banditry despite its undeniable significance in the political history of the territory. Generally, all of the studies discussed beg the question, given Britain’s military supremacy during the Second World War and unrivalled experience of colonial policing, of why counter-bandit strategies failed in Eritrea. Gebre-Medhin (1995: 181-190) summarizes the impasse in the internal security situation as emanating from Britain’s lack of interest and its lack of material and personnel resources to enforce security. True, after World War Two Britain's economy was unstable, a situation that was aggravated by the mounting expenses of running her disintegrating colonial empire (KNA: Secretariat 1/11/41; 86 Patriots or Bandits? KNA: Secretariat 1/4/3; KNA: CS 2/7/36). Taking into consideration that imperial outreach limited her logistical capacity to bolster security for Eritrea, Britain had also to contend with the political interests of Italy and Ethiopia while safeguarding her future strategic interests in the entire region. Accepting that the threat posed to the survival of Eritrea by domestic insecurity after 1947 was exacerbated by uncertainty over the territory’s political future, its ramifications cannot be adequately pictured unless the pre-war social-economic and political situations are fully understood. Whereas the conspiracy of the imperial powers had led to the colonization of Eritrea in 1885, a similar collusion erected obstacles over the determination of the sovereignty of the territory after the Second World War. In the context of the competing forces of imperialism under discussion, Eritrea was a territory contested by more than one party, but the injudicious determination of its sovereignty by the United Nations ignored the wishes of the people of Eritrea. This article will try to bring out Eritrea’s struggle against the vicissitudes of the post-Second World War decade, compared by Iyob with the biblical David and Goliath contest but in a case where God is openly supporting Goliath (Iyob 1995: 5). In short, the article argues that the causes, course, and resolution of post-Second World War banditry could not be isolated from the political uncertainty and complexity of determining Eritrea’s sovereignty.2 So, despite having the requisite mandate and muscle for the maintenance of law and order in Eritrea, counter-bandit strategies failed owing to a conflict of imperialistic interests that tied Eritrea’s political future in with those of the entire Horn of Africa. Although the people of Eritrea had been under intermittent foreign control spanning several centuries, it is their interaction with Ethiopian and West European imperialism in the latter half of the nineteenth century that is of immediate relevance to this study. Italian interests in Eritrea’s coast can be traced back to 1869 when merchant seafarers bought port facilities at Assab. This was facilitated by the increase in the strategic significance of the area following the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Proper imperial designs were discernible after Italy captured Massawa in 1885 from Egyptian control, who in turn had earlier captured it from the Turks (Amrit 1980: 3). Davidson (1980: 11-14) persuasively argues that having preceded other Europeans in the region Britain not only approved Italy’s conquest but welcomed her as a junior partner in the scramble for the Horn of Africa. After securing Massawa, Italian conquest of the interior of Eritrea was made easy by Abyssinia’s (Amharic) territorial expansionism that in the immediate term seemed to converge with West European imperialism. Our quest for understanding the problem starts with the treaty of friendship and alliance between Ethiopia and Italy of 2 May, 1889 known as the Treaty of Wich’ale (Uccialli). Following this treaty, Italy proclaimed Eritrea an Italian colony on 1 January 1890. Italian conquest of Eritrea not only curtailed Ethiopia’s 2 The Shifta under discussion was no opportunistic smash-and-grab outlaw but a militant who used brigandage to pursue a specific political
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Winning Hearts and Minds? Examining the Relationship Between Aid and Security in Kenya Mark Bradbury and Michael Kleinman ©2010 Feinstein International Center
    A PR I L 2 0 1 0 Strengthening the humanity and dignity of people in crisis through knowledge and practice Winning Hearts and Minds? Examining the Relationship Between Aid and Security in Kenya Mark Bradbury and Michael Kleinman ©2010 Feinstein International Center. All Rights Reserved. Fair use of this copyrighted material includes its use for non-commercial educational purposes, such as teaching, scholarship, research, criticism, commentary, and news reporting. Unless otherwise noted, those who wish to reproduce text and image files from this publication for such uses may do so without the Feinstein International Center’s express permission. However, all commercial use of this material and/or reproduction that alters its meaning or intent, without the express permission of the Feinstein International Center, is prohibited. Feinstein International Center Tufts University 200 Boston Ave., Suite 4800 Medford, MA 02155 USA tel: +1 617.627.3423 fax: +1 617.627.3428 fic.tufts.edu Acknowledgements The report has been written by Mark Bradbury and Michael Kleinman, who take responsibility for its contents and conclusions. We wish to thank our co-researchers Halima Shuria, Hussein A. Mahmoud, and Amina Soud for their substantive contribution to the research process. Andrew Catley, Lynn Carter, and Jan Bachmann provided insightful comments on a draft of the report. Dawn Stallard’s editorial skills made the report more readable. For reasons of confidentiality, the names of some individuals interviewed during the course of the research have been withheld. We wish to acknowledge and thank all of those who gave their time to be interviewed for the study.
    [Show full text]
  • Mind the Uppercase Letters
    The Springboks in East Africa: The role of 1 SA Survey Company (SAEC) in the East African Campaign of World War II, 1940-1941 Elri Liebenberg Department of Geography, University of South Africa Abstract. As a member of the British Commonwealth, South Africa was part of Britain’s war effort since September 1939. When Italy entered the War on the side of Germany on 10 June 1940, the Italian territories in East Africa comprised Abyssinia together with Eritrea, now part of Ethiopia, and Italian Somaliland, now part of the Somali Democratic Republic. Although pre-war plans did not anticipate that the SA Army would fight outside southern Africa, Italy’s involvement in north-east Africa made it inevitable that South African troops would be deployed to the new war frontier. The South African forces (commonly known in the media as “Springboks”) played a major role in the fall of Mussolini’s East African Empire. The war was fought under extreme physical circumstances, and it was especially the SAEC (South African Engineering Corps) which rendered invaluable ser- vices. By 1940 East Africa was still largely unmapped, and one of the SAEC units, 1 SA Survey Company (initially named the1st Field Survey Company), supported by 60 Photographic Squadron of the South African Air Force, mapped large parts of the war zone and provided essential military intelli- gence. This paper deals with the formation and subsequent deployment of 1 SA Survey Company in Kenya, Abyssinia and Somaliland, as well as the achie- vements of its various sections. The maps which were produced, are analy- sed against the background of the available source material and prevailing circumstances.
    [Show full text]
  • JAH 53 3.Pdf
    The Journal of African History http://journals.cambridge.org/AFH Additional services for The Journal of African History: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here THE SOCIOECONOMIC DYNAMICS OF THE SHIFTA CONFLICT IN KENYA, c. 1963–8 HANNAH ALICE WHITTAKER The Journal of African History / Volume 53 / Issue 03 / November 2012, pp 391 ­ 408 DOI: 10.1017/S0021853712000448, Published online: 09 January 2013 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0021853712000448 How to cite this article: HANNAH ALICE WHITTAKER (2012). THE SOCIOECONOMIC DYNAMICS OF THE SHIFTA CONFLICT IN KENYA, c. 1963–8. The Journal of African History, 53, pp 391­408 doi:10.1017/ S0021853712000448 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/AFH, IP address: 212.219.238.14 on 16 Jan 2013 Journal of African History, (), pp. –. © Cambridge University Press doi:./S THE SOCIOECONOMIC DYNAMICS OF THE SHIFTA CONFLICT IN KENYA, c . – * BY HANNAH ALICE WHITTAKER SOAS, University of London ABSTRACT: Using a set of oral testimonies, together with military, intelligence, and administrative reports from the s, this article re-examines the shifta conflict in Kenya. The article moves away from mono-causal, nationalistic interpretations of the event, to focus instead on the underlying socioeconomic dynamics and domestic implications of the conflict. It argues that the nationalist interpretation fails to capture the diversity of participation in shifta, which was not simply made up of militant Somali nationalists, and that it fails to acknowledge the significance of an internal Kenyan conflict between a newly independent state in the process of nation building, and a group of ‘dissident’ frontier communities that were seen to defy the new order.
    [Show full text]
  • Ethiopia: Prospects for Peace in Ogaden
    Ethiopia: Prospects for Peace in Ogaden Africa Report N°207 | 6 August 2013 International Crisis Group Headquarters Avenue Louise 149 1050 Brussels, Belgium Tel: +32 2 502 90 38 Fax: +32 2 502 50 38 [email protected] Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................... i I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 II. Ogaden: Ethiopia’s Most Contested Territory ................................................................. 2 III. The ONLF and Federal Ethiopia ...................................................................................... 5 A. The ONLF and the EPRDF ........................................................................................ 5 B. Article 39 .................................................................................................................... 7 C. Amateur Insurgents ................................................................................................... 7 D. Local Governance Issues ............................................................................................ 9 IV. Externalisation of the Conflict ......................................................................................... 10 A. The Eritrean Factor .................................................................................................... 10 B. The Somali Factor .....................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Debating on Success of the Kenya Counter Insurgency on the Shifta War: Between Double Success and Little Consolation
    International Affairs and Global Strategy www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-574X (Paper) ISSN 2224-8951 (Online) DOI: 10.7176/IAGS Vol.71, 2019 Debating on Success of the Kenya Counter Insurgency on the Shifta War: Between Double Success and Little Consolation Xavier F. Ichani 1* Reuben M. Matheka 2 Halkano A. Wario 2 1.Kenyatta University, Department of International Relations, Conflict and Strategic Studies 2.Egerton University, Department of Philosophy, History and Religion Abstract Military operations are undertaken to attain specific political and military objectives. However, what amounts to success in military operations remains unclear. Traditionally, operation success was narrowly defined in terms of objectives of the intervention. To ‘end human suffering’, ‘regime change,’ ‘capture a city,’ and ‘rescue captured troops.’ Modern definition of military success is human centric, based on tenets of just war principle of ‘do- more-good than harm.’ In this regards, operation success is achieved when and if in the intervention some people who would have died if no military assistance was granted, fail to die because the military intervened. Further, the restorative justice approach evaluates success of military operation in terms of state ability to repair harm committed by the military in the course of the war. The assumption is that military operations result in human rights violation. Using critical discourse analysis, this article interrogates the success of Kenya’s political and military objectives in the Shifta war against the four possible outcomes in war. First diplomatic and military success. Second, diplomatic and military failure. Third, diplomatic failure but military success and fourth, diplomatic success with military failure.
    [Show full text]
  • Donald-Crummey-African-Banditry
    EnterText 4.2 DONALD CRUMMEY African Banditry Revisited Eric Hobsbawm’s Bandits is a powerful and beguiling work of historical imagination attentive to the rural poor, their capacity for political action and their potential as participants in larger processes of social change.1 It combines an enthusiasm and affection for popular heroes of the countryside with an extraordinary range of examples across space and through time. Central to Hobsbawm’s argument is that, from time to time, bandits rise from the level of criminality and vendetta to become vital articulators of the cause of the rural poor and actors on their behalf. In short, they become social bandits, the prototype for which, in the anglophone world, is Robin Hood, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Criticism seems pedestrian by contrast with Hobsbawm’s sweep and verve. However, as Hobsbawm points out, in the introduction to the first two editions of the book, Africa is conspicuously absent from his gallery of heroes, a shortcoming which he addresses by reference, in the first paperback edition, to the antics of Ghanaian cocoa smugglers in the 1960s, and, in the second edition, to the careers of the Mesazghi brothers, Eritrean bandits who found themselves swept up into anti-British politics of the 1940s.2 There was no great rush of Africanist scholarship to respond to Hobsbawm’s invitation and challenge. Ed Keller was pretty quick off the mark with a 1973 article Donald Crummey: African Banditry Revisited 11 EnterText 4.2 in the Kenya Historical Review,3 and Allen
    [Show full text]
  • The Springboks in East Africa: the Role of 1 Sa Survey Company (Saec) in the East African Campaign of World War Ii, 1940–1941
    87 THE SPRINGBOKS IN EAST AFRICA: THE ROLE OF 1 SA SURVEY COMPANY (SAEC) IN THE EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN OF WORLD WAR II, 1940–1941 Elri Liebenberg1 Department of Geography, University of South Africa Abstract As a member of the British Commonwealth, South Africa was part of Britain’s war effort from September 1939 onward. When Italy entered the War on the side of Germany on 10 June 1940, the territories governed by Italy in East Africa comprised Abyssinia together with Eritrea, now part of Ethiopia, and Italian Somaliland, now part of the Somali Democratic Republic. Although pre-war plans did not anticipate that the South African (SA) Army would fight outside southern Africa, Italy’s involvement in northeast Africa made it inevitable that SA troops would be deployed to the new war front. The SA forces (nicknamed ‘Springboks’ in the media) played a major role in the demise of Mussolini’s East African Empire. The war was fought under extreme physical conditions, and it was especially the SAEC (South African Engineering Corps) who rendered invaluable service. By 1940 East Africa was still largely unmapped, and one of the SAEC units, 1 SA Survey Company (initially named the 1st Field Survey Company), supported by 60 Photographic Squadron of the SA Air Force (SAAF), mapped large parts of the war zone and provided essential military intelligence. Although the role the SAEC as a whole played in the East African Campaign has received attention in publications on South Africa’s involvement in World War II, little attention has been paid to the essential cartographical services rendered by 1 SA Survey Company.
    [Show full text]
  • THE SOMALI CONFLICT the ROLE of EXTERNAL ACTORS Bjørn Møller DIIS REPORT 2009:03 DIIS REPORT
    DIIS REPORT 2009:03 DIIS REPORT THE SOMALI CONFLICT THE ROLE OF EXTERNAL ACTORS Bjørn Møller DIIS REPORT 2009:03 DIIS REPORT DIIS . DANISH INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 1 DIIS REPORT 2009:03 © Copenhagen 2009 Danish Institute for International Studies, DIIS Strandgade 56, DK-1401 Copenhagen, Denmark Ph: +45 32 69 87 87 Fax: +45 32 69 87 00 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.diis.dk Cover Design: Carsten Schiøler Layout: Allan Lind Jørgensen Cover Photo: AP/Farah Abdi Warsameh Printed in Denmark by Vesterkopi AS ISBN 978-87-7605-305-5 Price: DKK 50.00 (VAT included) DIIS publications can be downloaded free of charge from www.diis.dk Hardcopies can be ordered at www.diis.dk This publication is part of DIIS’s Defence and Security Studies project which is funded by a grant from the Danish Ministry of Defence. Bjørn Møller, Senior Researcher, DIIS. The author holds an MA in History and a PhD in International Relations, both from the University of Copenhagen. Since 1985, he has been (senior) researcher at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI), which in 2003 became part of the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), where he is attached to the Defence and Security research unit. He served as Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) from 1997 to 2000, and has been external lecturer at the University of Copenhagen, both at the Institute of Political Studies since 1994 and at the Centre of African Studies since 2002. In addition to being the author of numerous articles and editor of seven anthologies, he is the author of three books.
    [Show full text]
  • Contemporary Banditry in the Horn of Africa: Causes, History and Political Implications* NENE MBURU University of London, United Kingdom
    Nordic Journal of African Studies 8(2): 89-107 (1999) Contemporary Banditry in the Horn of Africa: Causes, History and Political Implications* NENE MBURU University of London, United Kingdom ABSTRACT Banditry that cannot be categorized as traditional feuding has failed to attract international scholarship despite its pervasiveness and devastation to an already politically fragile Horn of Africa. This article decries the lack of scholarly interest on the subject, which it links to the treatment of the problem as a concern purely for the Third World, and the United Nations ineffectiveness in dealing with subnational tensions. While there is a general academic draught on the subject, some of the existing literature romanticizes the brigand and fails to establish a firm anchor of the phenomenon with geopolitical issues that wrap together poverty, political instability and inexorable lawlessness. Therefore this article briefly addresses this gap in our knowledge of organized banditry whose motive, opportunity, and means though manifested within the State, are actually symptoms of regional problems. It traces the causes, history, and implications of four families of brigands, Kafagne, Faloul, Ngoroko, and the Shifta found in the turbulent Horn of Africa today. In the concluding reflections, several measures are recommended for the regional governments and the international society to eradicate the problem. INTRODUCTION If one can advance a general theory on banditry in the area of study, it is that, although social breakdown is a constant stimulus for brigandage within the State, its escalation, and threat to regional security is a factor of the unstable external political environment. In other words, even where authoritarian political elite spark off banditry through the economic insulation of certain ethnic groups, their attitude is an extension of the indifference of the international society to the symmetrical connexion between regional political instability, poverty, and lawlessness.
    [Show full text]
  • RRTA 203 (31 October 2006)
    060607488 [2006] RRTA 203 (31 October 2006) DECISION RECORD RRT CASE NUMBER: 060607488 DIMA REFERENCE(S): CLF2006/5948 OSF2002/122217 COUNTRY OF REFERENCE: Ethiopia TRIBUNAL MEMBER: Karen Synon DATE DECISION RECORD SIGNED: 31 October 2006 PLACE OF DECISION: Melbourne DECISION: The Tribunal remits the matter for reconsideration with the direction that the applicant is a person to whom Australia has protection obligations under the Refugees Convention. STATEMENT OF DECISION AND REASONS APPLICATION FOR REVIEW This is an application for review of a decision made by a delegate of the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to refuse to grant the applicant a Protection (Class XA) visa under s.65 of the Migration Act 1958 (the Act). The applicant, who claims to be a citizen of Ethiopia, arrived in Australia in 2003 and applied to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs for a Protection (Class XA) visa in early 2006. The delegate decided to refuse to grant the visa and notified the applicant of the decision and his review rights by letter posted in late 2006. The delegate refused the visa application as the applicant is not a person to whom Australia has protection obligations under the Refugees Convention. The applicant applied to the Tribunal for review of the delegate’s decision. The Tribunal finds that the delegate’s decision is an RRT-reviewable decision under s.411(1)(c) of the Act. The Tribunal finds that the applicant has made a valid application for review under s.412 of the Act. RELEVANT LAW Under s.65(1) a visa may be granted only if the decision maker is satisfied that the prescribed criteria for the visa have been satisfied.
    [Show full text]
  • The Horn of Africa and International Relations
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Matthies, Volker Article — Digitized Version The horn of Africa and international relations Intereconomics Suggested Citation: Matthies, Volker (1974) : The horn of Africa and international relations, Intereconomics, ISSN 0020-5346, Verlag Weltarchiv, Hamburg, Vol. 09, Iss. 12, pp. 385-388, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02929399 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/139123 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu Ethiopia The Horn of Africa and International Relations by Volker Matthies, Hamburg * All the countries abutting on the Red Sea and on the Gulf of Aden as well as the East African coast will gain In economic, political, and strategic importance as soon as the Suez Canal is reopened to shipping.
    [Show full text]
  • History in Africa Writing Eritrea
    History in Africa http://journals.cambridge.org/HIA Additional services for History in Africa: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Writing Eritrea: History and Representation in a Bad Neighborhood Richard Reid History in Africa / Volume 41 / June 2014, pp 83 - 115 DOI: 10.1017/hia.2014.16, Published online: 06 May 2014 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0361541314000163 How to cite this article: Richard Reid (2014). Writing Eritrea: History and Representation in a Bad Neighborhood . History in Africa, 41, pp 83-115 doi:10.1017/hia.2014.16 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/HIA, IP address: 212.219.138.14 on 17 Jun 2014 Writing Eritrea: History and Representation in a Bad Neighborhood Richard Reid Abstract: This paper reflects on the ways in which Eritrea has been written about since circa 2001, the point at which the country entered a new phase of heightened authoritarianism and increased international isolation. It considers the ways in which Eritrea has been seen largely in “presentist” terms, due in no small way to the Eritrean government’s own intrinsic hostility to independent historical research, with an overwhelming fixation on its dire human rights and governance record, and on the nature of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), which governs in all but name. The paper urges a more historical approach, beginning with the critical three decades that preceded the emergence of the EPLF in the early 1970s. Résumé: Cet article porte sur les manières par lesquelles l’on a écrit sur l’Erythrée depuis 2001, au moment où le pays est entré dans une nouvelle phase d’autoritarisme et isolement international accrus.
    [Show full text]